SLT’s 50th AGM

On Thursday evening at the Rosendale Pub in West Dulwich, SLT held its 50th AGM followed by the 43rd AGM of the Members Club. The evening was extremely well attended and there was an anniversary cake to celebrate the club’s 50th year. Members generously donated to a raffle draw organised by Jeanette Hoile and members also gave a donation per slice of cake. At the end of the evening there was still half a cake to be had and so Mark Ireson (auctioneer extraordinaire) put the rest of the cake up for auction. Sean Thomas offered up the first bid but very quickly an exciting bidding war between Charlotte Benstead and Chaz Doyle ensued, with Chaz taking the prize with a winning £50 bid. It seemed fitting that a £50 bid won the 50th anniversary cake.

Minutes from each AGM are published the following year when they are proposed and agreed at the next AGM, but for those that could not attend, here are some details of the meeting:

After 2 years service to General Council (GC) Charlotte Benstead stepped down from her position as General Secretary and Fiona Daffern took up the position. GC thanked Charlotte for her two years on the council and welcomed Fiona into the role.

At the AGM Charlotte highlighted the Crowdfunding campaign that she has set up to gather pledges for the equipment needed to kit out the new theatre. So far we have raised 5% with 33 days left to go. Please take a look at our Crowdfunding Project here and see if there is something you would like to pledge for the theatre.

Caroline Doyle also decided to step down from her role on Theatre Committee (TC) and two other members threw their names into the hat which meant elections were held for the new team. Elected on the night were Mark Ireson, Siobhán Campbell, Lisa Thomas and Jess Osorio who joins the three re-elected members of the committee. Congratulations to all and we look forward to the season that they pick for the year in which we return to our theatre in West Norwood.

Bob Callender gave an update on the theatre’s restoration progress and revealed the winning tender for the Exhibition project. The Exhibition project is a part of our commitment to Heritage Lottery and entails creating spaces and interactive elements all across the theatre to reveal the building’s history, heritage and the people that have used it since it was built in 1881. We will be publishing the winning Exhibition bid in the news section here in the coming days.

Also present was our designer from Art4Space who are providing our heritage community art project. She brought along her initial designs for the ceramic mural that will be displayed in the new foyer of the re-opened building. Her work is beautiful and we’re looking forward to seeing the final piece which should be completed by late November.

In other news, some of the proposed resolutions were passed and some were parked for further discussion and clarification – these will be highlighted in the minutes when they are published next year.

We would like to thank everyone who attended and made it such a brilliant evening. There is a real sense of excitement as we approach the months in which we will return to the Old Fire Station and start the next chapter of the club’s history.